Posted on 07/21/2015 4:13:06 AM PDT by RoosterRedux
Though he immediately backtracked, presidential candidate Donald Trump reopened the controversy over Sen. John McCain’s service during the Vietnam War and his subsequent handling of the post-war POW issue by questioning whether the Arizona Republican should be regarded as a hero.
McCain, whose father and grandfather were four-star Navy admirals, has been commended throughout his career in the Senate for enduring five-and-a-half years in the infamous “Hanoi Hilton” prison in North Vietnam.
But various critics, including Pulitzer-Prize winning journalist Sydney H. Schanberg, have charged that McCain, working with fellow Vietnam veteran and then-Sen. John F. Kerry, D-Mass., suppressed information about POWs believed to have been left behind by the U.S. government at the end of the Vietnam War.
In a 2008 article published by the Nation Institute when McCain was the Republican nominee for president, Schanberg wrote that the senator, who had risen to political prominence based on his war-hero image, “has, inexplicably, worked very hard to hide from the public stunning information about American prisoners in Vietnam who, unlike him, didn’t return home.”
“Throughout his Senate career, McCain has quietly sponsored and pushed into federal law a set of prohibitions that keep the most revealing information about these men buried as classified documents,” Schanberg wrote.
(Excerpt) Read more at wnd.com ...
Corsi is not the original or only source
Whatever McCain did in Hanoi his actions as a US Senator vs the MIAs are a matter of historical record
Got that. That's why I prefaced it with the separation between his time as Senator and his military career. He's one of the worst examples of a GOP Senator I've ever seen. I'm just trying to keep the Hanoi experiences in perspective.
I agree with all our comments except that one. I doubt Trump had heard that Chris Rock routine. Many people would not have considered POWs heroes necessarily in earlier times. But today everybody gets a trophy and every military person, every policeman, ever fireman, half the population are called heroes at times.
So, people older than around 40 might have a definition of hero from an earlier era. I agree with Ben Carson when he said it depends on your definition.
There are many laudable terms that can be applied to POWs. What they really are is survivors of a terrrible situation they didn't choose to be in.
Thanks for the link. I have seen that before, it makes me so mad. How is this man still in the senate?
I wish Trump would come out and say if he is elected, he will try to find out what happened to all the other POW/MIA, and unseal the info.
POWs & MIAs that McCain wanted to ignore and/or hide from discovery.
I think that our side would be better served by staying out of this stuff. We have bigger fish to fry.
...attacking his background as a POW is over the top....
&&&
Amen!
And, just from a strategy angle, it is distracting and divisive.
Thank you. It sure is.
treated like a ....wacko bird?
I couldn’t agree more. McCain’s record as a Senator is a very target-rich environment. Trump should’ve stayed there.
I was around McCain several times. In Arizona and in Houston. He is creepy, stupid, mean, unable to change his mind, a smart ass, clownish and generally pissed off about something all the time. He was obviously mentally unstable in some way. He has a very dark Dr. Stranglove way about him. He was totally unlikeable. He looked ancient standing next to his wife. She was the only highlight of being around him, very nice on the eyes.
The problem with McCain and almost most of these political pukes is that they all think they are Frank Underwood. It is all about the game and not about the country.
Trent Lott was a POW at the Hanoi Hilton longer than Juan Meuquene, if memory serves. Why wasn’t Lott given a “Universal Perpetually Sufficient Get-Out-Of-Jail- Free Hero Card” like Juan got?
Lott wasn’t a member of the Keating Five or any other scheister group, either. The thing that precipitated his being skinned alive was that he wished an old Republican, Strom Thurmond, a happy birthday.
Meanwhile, Democrat former U.S. Senator Hollis passed legislation that put the currently reviled Confederate Battle Flag atop the SC Capitol Building; and Hollis remains unscathed and revered in democRat political circles. Ditto Clinton/Gore, whose campaign badge was a very nice enameled Rebel Battle Flag.
Does all this hoooraww about that flag mean I can no longer view the John Wayne “HORSE SOLDIERS” flick?/S
Well, that, and at times a good bit worse.
CORRECTION: In SC it was Senator (Too much consumin’ goin’ on out deah!) Hollings.
Not Hollis.
My bad. I’m so ashamed.
Trent Lott from Mississippi? No way!! Are you thinking of Jeremiah Denton?
From Wikipedia: (snip)
Jeremiah Andrew Denton, Jr. (July 15, 1924 – March 28, 2014) was a Rear Admiral and Naval Aviator in the United States Navy and, following his retirement from naval service, was a United States Senator from the state of Alabama.
He spent almost eight years as a prisoner of war (POW) in North Vietnam and later wrote a book that became a film about those experiences. Denton is best known from this period of his life for the 1966 televised press conference in which he was forced to participate as an American POW by his North Vietnamese captors. He used the opportunity to communicate successfully and to confirm for the first time to the U.S. Office of Naval Intelligence and Americans that American POWs were being tortured in North Vietnam. He repeatedly blinked his eyes in Morse code during the interview, spelling out the word "T-O-R-T-U-R-E".
It appears you are correct. I had the wrong name. Thank you. I wanted to make a point, but not with incorrect information.
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